Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Some performers, by way of bringing the trick to a smart conclusion, after they have dropped in all the coins, remark, “The hat begins to get heavy,” or make some similar observation, at the same time dipping the right hand into the hat, as if to gauge the quantity obtained; and, giving the money a shake, bring up the hand with four or five of the coins clipped breadthwise against the lowest joints of the second and third fingers. Then pretend to catch in quick succession that number of coins, each time sliding one of the coins with the thumb to the finger-tips, and tossing it into the hat. It is by no means uncommon to see a performer, after having apparently dropped two or three coins into the hat in the ordinary way, pretend to pass in one or more through the side or crown. This produces a momentary effect, but it is an effect purchased at the cost of enabling an acute spectator to infer, with logical certainty, that the coin seen in the right hand was not the same that was, the moment afterwards, heard to chink within the hat; and this furnishes a distinct clue to the secret of the trick. It is obvious that, in the above form of the trick (which so far should be classed among “tricks without apparatus”), the performer cannot show the inside of his hands; and it is not uncommon to find an acute observer (particularly where the performer is guilty of the indiscretion we have just noted) so far hit upon the true explanation, as to express audibly a conjecture that the money which the performer catches is really the same coin over and over again. There is, however, a mechanical appliance known as the “money-slide,” which is designed to meet this difficulty, and to enable the performer still to catch the coin, though he has but a moment before shown that his hand is empty.